There is certainly something very noble and large-minded in the intention of those who have endeavoured to protect from envy the noble achievements of distinguished men, and to rescue their names, worthy of immortality, from oblivion and decay. This desire has given us the lineaments of famous men, sculptured in marble, or fashioned in bronze, as a memorial of them to future ages; to the same feeling we owe the erection of statues, both ordinary and equestrian; hence, as the poet[1] says, has originated expenditure, mounting to the stars, upon columns and pyramids; with this desire, lastly, cities have been built, and distinguished by the names of those men, whom the gratitude of posterity thought worthy of being handed down to all ages. For the state of the human mind is such, that unless it be continually stirred by the counterparts[2] of matters, obtruding themselves upon it from without, all recollection of the matters easily passes away from it. [1] Propertius, iii. 2. 17-22. [2] Compare Lucretius iv. 881: Dico animo nostro primum simulacra meandi Accidere, atque animum pulsare. But others, having regard for more stable and more lasting monuments, secured the eternity of the fame of great men by placing it under the protection, not of marble or bronze, but of the Muses’ guardianship and the imperishable monuments of literature. But why do I mention these things, as if human wit, content with these regions, did not dare to advance further; whereas, since she well understood that all human monuments do perish at last by violence, by weather, or by age, she took a wider view, and invented more imperishable signs, over which destroying Time and envious Age could claim no rights; so, betaking herself to the sky, she inscribed on the well-known orbs of the brightest stars—those everlasting orbs—the names of those who, for eminent and god-like deeds, were accounted worthy to enjoy an eternity in company with the stars. Wherefore the fame of Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Hercules, and the rest of the heroes by whose names the stars are called, will not fade until the extinction of the splendour of the constellations themselves.